How Much Does it Cost to Sell on Etsy vs WooCommerce

Selling your crafts online is a great way to make some extra money from your favorite hobbies. Choosing where to sell those crafts, however, can be tricky; there are several options, many of which come with complicated fees. So, we’ve put together this guide to answer one of your biggest questions: how much does it cost to sell on Etsy vs WooCommerce?

To help you understand these ecommerce platforms, 🛒 we’ve broken this article down into five sections:

1. What is Etsy?
2. What is WooCommerce?
3. How much does it cost to sell on Etsy?
4. How much does it cost to sell with WooCommerce?
5. Etsy vs WooCommerce: cost breakdown

By the time you’re finished reading, you’ll have a firm grasp of the cost difference between these two online sales platforms.

What is Etsy?

Etsy is a digital marketplace that emphasizes homemade crafts and independent creators. You can sign up, create your digital store, and make your inventory available for sale in under an hour. There’s no need to have previous web design experience or knowledge of code. Plus, once you’ve signed up, Etsy’s 89.90 million buyers will find your products when browsing the marketplace ^[1].

Pros of selling on Etsy 👍

There is no need to worry about researching web hosting options or paying web hosting fees.

You can build your online store quickly without any knowledge of website design or code.

Your Etsy store automatically comes with easy options for buyers to leave reviews.

The products you sell are visible to users searching for the types of crafts you create right away.

You’re only competing with other independent creators and not with massive brands.

Etsy is a trusted platform with an established payment system, which ensures that your customers will feel comfortable buying from you.

You can find advice and community on the Etsy forums.

Cons of selling on Etsy 👎

People are more likely to remember your products as things they “bought on Etsy,” rather than things they bought from you.

Unfortunately, you can’t set up a newsletter signup form on your Etsy shop, making it harder to build long-term relationships with customers.

You’ll be competing with 7.47 million other independent creators on the platform. Etsy will even sometimes recommend others’ crafts under your product listings ^[2].

Etsy fees are complicated. If you’re selling many items, then this can add up significantly.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an ecommerce solution built for WordPress websites. To use this tool, you’ll need to set up a website and install WooCommerce on it. This sounds like a lot, but WooCommerce is quite easy to handle, even without an understanding of code or web design – which is probably why it’s being used on over three million live websites.

Pros of selling with WooCommerce 👍

You build your own platform and reputation instead of improving the reputation of a third-party seller.

Adding newsletter signup forms to your website is a breeze and will encourage repeat business from your customers.

You can also add a variety of payment gateways via WooCommerce extensions to accept buyers from all over the world.

In addition, you can find other extensions to help with shipping, taxes, selling different types of products (like memberships), and more.

You don’t have to worry about other people’s products or shops being listed under your product info.

WooCommerce offers extensive documentation, a blog with sales tips, and a list of agencies specialized in working with WooCommerce.

Cons of selling with WooCommerce 👎

You have to set up a whole website with WordPress.

You have to pay for website hosting up front, and the cost of website hosting typically increases after the first year.

You’ll have to put more effort into maintenance and site security.

You’ll need to build your audience from scratch.

You’ll be in direct competition with every other website in your niche.

WordPress lacks direct human customer support.

How much does it cost to sell on Etsy?

Now that we’ve established what Etsy is and why you might (or might not) want to sell your crafts there, it’s time to dive into the big question: how much does it cost to sell on Etsy?

The short answer is that how much it costs will depend on how many items you sell.

The long answer is that there are three types of fees on Etsy.

Let’s dive a little deeper into the long answer by taking a closer look at each type of fee:

Listing fees 💵

Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee for every item you post to its marketplace. This payment covers your listing for four months, which means you’ll have to pay again if your item doesn’t sell in that time and you want to keep it in your shop.

If you list more than one of an item (for example, ten of the exact same purses), you’ll only be charged $0.20 at the time of listing. However, you’ll be charged an additional $0.20 every time you make a sale.

🤔 Confused? Here’s how it breaks down:

• If you sell none of the purses, you’ll only pay the initial $0.20 fee, plus the $0.20 renewal fee if you decide to keep it in your store past four months.
• If you sell one of the purses, you’ll pay the initial fee, plus a renewal fee at the time of sale; the listing is considered automatically renewed when an item sells.
• If you sell all ten purses in one order, the initial $0.20 fee counts toward one item. Then, you’d pay a $1.80 renewal ($0.20 x 9) for the remaining nine items.

In other words, you might not have to pay the listing fee for all the items upfront, but you will eventually have to pay listing fees on every item.

Transaction fees 💱

When you make a sale, Etsy charges you a transaction fee of 6.5% of the listing price plus the price of shipping and gift wrapping. So if you charge $15 for an item, $5 for shipping, and $5 for gift wrapping, the fee will be 6.5% of $25 ($1.63).

If you offer personalization for an additional fee, then this will also be incorporated into the price that your transaction fee is based on. So if you charge $20 for someone to customize an item and the general cost including shipping and gift wrapping would be $25, your transaction fee will be 6.5% of $45 ($2.93).

If you’re in the US, sales tax will not be included in the price your transaction fee is based on. So if the base price is $25 and there’s a $6 tax charge, you’ll still only pay 6.5% of the original $25. If you’re outside of the US, however, your sales tax will be included in the official listing price, so if the full price including tax is $31, you’ll pay 6.5% of that $31.

Offsite advertising 📢

Offsite advertising is one of the biggest complications in answering the question of how much does it cost to sell on Etsy.

Etsy advertises items from its marketplace on a variety of partner sites. If someone finds an item from your store through one of these ads, clicks on the ad, and goes on to purchase your item, then this will be considered an Attributed Order.

👉 There are two fee levels for Attributed Orders:

• If your store has made less than $10,000 in the past 365 days, then you’ll pay a 15% fee. The percentage is based on your list price + shipping + gift wrapping costs (and sales tax in certain regions). Alongside transaction fees, this means you’ll pay 21.5% of your listing price in fees when someone makes an Attributed Order.
• If your store has made over $10,000 in the past 365 days, then your fee will be reduced to 12%. You will continue to pay the 12% Attributed Order fee for the lifetime of your store, even if you make less than $10,000 in the following year (or drop below the $10,000 threshold at any time). This means Attributed Orders will have total fees of 18.5% of the purchase cost.

Note that you can opt out of offsite advertising if your store is below the threshold of $10,000 per 365 days. This opt-out will automatically be removed if you cross the threshold of $10,000 per 365 days.

How much does it cost to sell on WooCommerce?

Now we’ve answered your first question: how much does it cost to sell on Etsy?

The next question is how much does it cost to sell on WooCommerce?

Again, you have three types of fees to explore. There are:

Hosting and domain fees 💻️

WooCommerce can only be used on a WordPress website. This means you’ll need to pay for website hosting to make that website available online. You’ll also need to get a domain name, which is the name people use to find your site (for example, ours is themeisle.com).

The good news is that you can find many hosting plans that come with a domain name bundled into the main cost. Many are also quite affordable in the first year. Bluehost, one of the web hosts recommended both by us and by WordPress itself, is just $9.95 per month for the first year of WooCommerce hosting – that’s $119.40 for a full year.

Note that these fees go up significantly in year two, reaching $24.95 per month ($299.40 for the year). Therefore you’ll need to factor that into your long-term budgeting.

Transaction fees 💱

If you’re using WooCommerce Payments, WooCommerce charges 2.9% + $0.30 on all payments made with US-issued credit or debit cards. You’ll be charged an additional 1% fee for payments made from cards issued outside of the US, bringing the fee up to 3.9% + $0.30. This is for US merchants; other countries have different fees.

Fees for additional payment gateways 🏦

WooCommerce offers extensions that allow you to connect to a number of payment gateways. Here are the cost breakdowns for some of the most popular options:

• PayPal payments have transaction fees of 2.99% + 0.49, paid directly to PayPal. The extension itself is free. That’s for US merchants. Fees vary drastically for other countries.
• Stripe payments can be accepted with the free Stripe extension for WooCommerce. Transaction fees are 2.9% + 0.30.
• Authorize.net also charges 2.9% + 0.30 on all transactions, but there’s also a $25 monthly gateway fee. In addition, you’ll need to buy the Authorize.net extension for WooCommerce, which costs $6.59 per month or $79 per year.

There are WooCommerce extensions for a variety of other payment gateways, including Square, Braintree, and Payoneer. Some of these extensions are free while others are paid. Plus each payment gateway has its own fee structure, which is why it’s crucial for you take a close look at any extensions you’re considering for additional payment gateways when figuring out your budget.

How much does it cost to sell on Etsy vs WooCommerce: cost breakdown

So we’ve answered the big question: how much does it cost to sell on Etsy? We’ve also looked at how much it costs to sell with WooCommerce. But what is the best way to sell your stuff online?

To figure this out, you need to look at two types of costs: upfront costs (what you’ll pay to set it up), and ongoing costs (like transaction fees and renewals).

🔎 Upfront costs

🔎 Ongoing costs

How much does it cost to sell on Etsy vs WooCommerce: what is the more affordable platform?

• 👉 If you want to sell the occasional craft for some pocket money, then Etsy is more affordable since you don’t have to pay for hosting. By choosing to opt out of offsite ads, you can avoid the additional 15% fee, which can be significant.
• 👉 If you want to sell many items and build a substantial secondary income or even replace your full-time job, then WooCommerce is more affordable because it doesn’t charge for individual listings and the transaction fees are considerably lower. You also won’t have to worry about offsite ads causing additional transaction fees.

With that, we hope we’ve answered all of your questions related to how much does it cost to sell on Etsy vs WooCommerce and given you a clear idea of what platform you’ll use to set up your ecommerce store!

What selling platform are you most interested in? Let us know in the comments section below!